


brave new world that has such people in it

by stellerssong, the_everqueen



Series: come, love, sleep [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fae, Changelings, Gen, Kitsune, Mutual suspicion, One-Sided Not-Pining, Pre-Relationship, just a couple of lonely critters trying their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-26 08:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14996951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellerssong/pseuds/stellerssong, https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_everqueen/pseuds/the_everqueen
Summary: (you find onlythe shape you already arebut whatif you have forgotten thator discover youhave never known)~Margaret Atwood





	1. no harm intended, no harm

**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter titles from ["Creature Song"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKwLtXLOiTw) by the Mountain Goats.
> 
> In tonight's production, your cast will be as follows:
> 
> Jin Ha as Alexander Hamilton (specifically, [this Jin Ha](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFrCToCZXIA))
> 
> Phillipa Soo as Eliza Schuyler
> 
> Emmy Raver-Lampman as Angelica Schuyler

Alex hasn’t eaten, really eaten, since John left. Sure, he’s had human food — a cafeteria sandwich in between classes, takeout after he stumbled home bleary and light-headed, countless cups of coffee keeping him upright — but nothing that sustains. And not for lack of trying, either. He went out hunting a couple weeks ago, but the girl he picked up had a lion’s mane of honeyed curls and sharp, clever eyes, and at the last minute Alex couldn’t do it. Instead he went down on her, lost some strands of hair to her grasping hands, and left once she’d drifted into a magic-induced sleep, her heart and liver intact. Since then, he’s managed to get out a few more times — look, he’s a law student, he’s busy — but there’s always something holding him back from going for the kill. His prey gives him the wrong vibe, like they Suspect, or his Allure slips from him in fits and starts, sending him running for the nearest bathroom to regain control before his tail escapes.

Tonight, Alex is determined to have a meal. He refuses to let this, this _complex_ get the best of him. He needs strength for his upcoming exam; the craving for blood is so strong he can taste copper-salt on the end of his tongue.

Problem is, no one in the club looks very appealing. Leaning against the bar, he scans the dance floor, where people are grinding against each other to a pulse-jarring bass. He ought to pick _someone_ , dance with one of the twinks until he can lure them into the alley out back.

He doesn’t move from his spot.

“Can I get a shot?” he calls to the bartender, holding up a ten dollar bill.

“Preference?”

“Tequila.” The bartender pours, obliging, and Alex knocks it back in one quick swallow. The amber liquid burns all the way down; he licks the salt around the glass rim to cover the bitter taste. Isn’t the good stuff supposed to be smooth? The back of his throat feels raw.

Revived, he lifts his head and scents the air. Surely there’s one person worth eating here — or if not, he can force down a subpar heart, something to revive his taste for the hunt. It’d be a shame to waste these jeans, or the sharp wing of his eyeliner.

His attention snags on a particular smell: fresh spring rain, green things unfolding, floral sweetness. It stands out from the salt, alcohol, human around him, unmistakably faery.

Now that’s interesting. Alex wouldn’t go so far as to call this club _his_ territory, but he’s been hunting here since starting law school, almost two semesters, and he has yet to run into another faery. Some humans with the blood, sure, and even one with the Sight — but no one from the Courts. Even the exiles tend towards the sketchier places on the verge of the city, out of the shadows of iron and steel. What could bring a faery here? Hunger, perhaps. One of the lesser fae seeking out a meal, away from the more dangerous territories.

Pushing off the bar, Alex goes in search of the source of that green scent, nose twitching. It’s more difficult than it should be, given his keen senses: the bar is crowded, yes, but there’s something else, a subtle thrum of magic that keeps turning him in circles. If he had any sense of self-preservation, Alex would shy from what guarantees to be some kind of fight — two desperate creatures vying for grounds — but he isn’t luring prey, and there’s another hunger gnawing at his belly, darker and lonelier. The apartment seems too big with Laurens gone. And although Alex would rather die than admit it out loud, he misses having someone to talk to in the evenings, a chance to synthesize his ideas from class or trade department gossip like favors. He _wants_ , either a reminder he isn’t the only one of his kind around, or the adrenaline rush of chasing off an interloper, a minor victory before he trudges back to the empty apartment. He doesn’t care which.

Drawing his Allure tight around himself, he prowls to the far end of the bartop he hasn’t yet managed to reach. That’s when he sees her — or rather, his eyes slip too easily over the figure seated alone, nursing an empty glass. He has to focus on the slim shape of her to hold her in mind; he keeps an eye on her while he prowls closer, moving through the swaying dancers and drunks.

He leans in to be heard over the music: “Can I get your next one?”

She brushes aside the dark curtain of hair shrouding her face. Her eyes widen.

“What do you want,” she says, syllables pinched. “Who are you. What are you doing here.”

Alex cocks his head. That’s… not the reaction he expected. From her terror-stricken look, he’d almost think she was a human with the Sight, maybe some escaped slave of the Courts, except for that inhuman smell. But then she’s wearing layers on layers of Concealment — _for what? what does she have to hide?_ — and her apple-round cheeks radiate goodness as only a seelie faery could.

“I’m allowed to be here, same as you, aren’t I?” he says, placating. “Unless — this isn’t your territory, is it?”

Her lips press into a tight, thin line. Alex waits for her to hex him, chew him out, give him the cold shoulder. Maybe she’ll pull on another Concealment and make herself invisible, so that not even his sharp eyes can find her. 

She does none of these things. Instead, she watches him, mouth narrowed, the fear from a second ago hidden behind an inscrutable mask. Alex tries again. “I’ve never seen you here before. Or any changelings, really. Although this place is quieter than the fae establishments uptown, so.” He shrugs. He’s trying not to look too interested — if he were in fox shape, his ears would be pricked and his tail curled into a question mark — but he hasn’t seen a changeling since undergrad, freshman year, at a house party that attracted several Court exiles and even a couple satyrs. Changelings tend to stay closer to the human world, where they have fairly solid lives so long as no one finds out their true natures. Of course, most of them don’t make it to adulthood — it only takes one childish slip for them to be discarded, burned alive or worse. Humans have never been good at accepting intrusions into their safe, boring world. But the changelings who manage to survive are cautious, reserved, tenacious.

Well, that explains the Concealments.

“I’m Alex,” he offers, because she still hasn’t said anything and the hand on her glass has started to shake. Friendly gesture, the kind he normally wouldn’t risk on a strange faery: names have power, and now she has an advantage over him, however slight. But he doesn’t want to go home, not yet.

“Eliza,” she whispers, so quiet he almost loses it to the noise around them. “This isn’t my territory. I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll go now, if you want. Only give me and mine safe passage. That’s all. Please. Please.”

Alex bursts out laughing.

“Oh gods,” he gasps, when he can spare a breath. “That’s hilarious. I’m not — this isn’t mine, either, I don’t have any power here. You can go whenever you want. Or not, I don’t care. But it’s fine. I’m just — I come here sometimes. That’s all.”

She blinks. “I don’t. Come here, I mean. I don’t — places like this are — difficult. For me.” Her sentences jerk along in fits and starts, as though she’s considering each word before letting it out, as though there might be a wrong answer, and a wrong answer would have Consequences. But she’s talking to him, hasn’t dismissed him.

He smiles, encouraging. “Right, right. Changeling. Of course. Like I said, I could get you another drink? Whatever you like. EDM is easier to handle when you’re buzzed.”

“No thanks. _Reynard_.”

The sneer in her tone catches him off-guard. “Actually, it’s _kitsune_ ,” he says, forcing his voice to sound even. “Not that it matters.” Except it does, the difference does matter to him, or else he wouldn’t have mentioned it. He pushes aside the mild irritation and continues, “So what brings you here? You’re not into clubs, you’re sober. It doesn’t seem like you’re having a good time.”

“I’m just here,” she says. “With a person.”

That’s not even a good excuse. Is this her way of telling him to fuck off? “You could at least come up with an interesting lie.”

Eliza frowns, 

“Bets, you dummy, are you gonna come dance with me, or are you gonna just sit there and pound shots all night.”

The woman appears from nowhere — Alex certainly would have remembered glimpsing her in the crowds — gracing Eliza with a fond smile that’s no less electric for its familiarity. She squeezes her arm, swaying on six-inch Valentinos. _Bets?_ A nickname, and Eliza isn’t giving her the cold shoulder, either. Alex hums, interested. She smells human, but there’s something about her, a crackle of intelligence the alcohol hasn’t diminished. Her heart beats in time to the music, heavy and bloodred and full.

Alex’s stomach rumbles.

(If he kills her, he’ll have a sated belly _and_ a new pair of heels.)

She keeps talking: “Not much of a sisters’ night out if I don’t even get to spend time with you, is it? Oh, wait, you wanna do a shot together? Anything but that marshmallow vodka, though, please, I love you so much but I have to draw the line somewhere…” That’s when she notices Alex. Her gaze slides between him and Eliza, her smile taking on a sly edge. “... Unless — unless I’m interrupting something?”

“No, you’re fine.” Eliza takes his hand, sending a jolt of surprise through him. Her voice, stiff and quiet just a second earlier, is cool, possessive. “Alex here was just telling me about this place. Since I’ve, you know. Never been.”

Her sister raises an artfully sculpted eyebrow. “That so?”

“I was just surprised,” Alex intercepts smoothly. Thanking the gods he decided on these jeans after all, he bats his eyelashes, flashes a grin full of Allure. She gives him a once-over, lingering on the bare skin above his waistband where his skin-tight shirt has ridden up. Nice. Alex lets his face look a little sharper, a little hungrier. “I like this place, I’m here a lot. So I would’ve remembered seeing her here, you know? Seeing either of you, really.”

“Yeah, well — I’m just in town for the weekend, and my favorite dive in Bushwick closed end of last year, so. Thought I’d scope this place out. Heard good things about it.”

“And? Is it living up to the hype?”

“I’m reserving judgment.” She tosses her head, haughty as a queen, drunk as a courtier. Alex laughs, delighted.

“Sure. I get the idea it takes a lot to satisfy you.”

“Oh? And how did you figure that out?”

“Just a hunch,” Alex says. There’s more on the tip of his tongue, _let’s go someplace quieter, find out exactly how much it takes_ , but then her mouth goes suddenly slack, her interest broken as neatly as someone snipping a thread. She looks at Eliza, and her eyes refocus. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she says, uncertain, a response to a statement no one made. Then she staggers back to the dance floor, hips moving out of time.

What the hell just happened? 

Eliza snatches her hand away from his. Alex had forgotten she was touching him, and the absence of her fingers on his skin feels inexplicably like a terrible loss. He stares at the space where her sister had been, the first human he’s craved in a long time, gone before he could even get his teeth around her throat.  

“I never do that to my sister,” Eliza snarls. Alex flinches from the edge in her voice. “ _Never_. Not since we were tiny, and I didn’t know what I was doing. But then you come along. And then I have to lie to her. To my _sister_. I have to treat her like she’s just some nobody human. So thanks for ruining my fucking night, asshole. And you owe me that drink now.”

She says _sister_ like that should mean something to him. The only sibling he’s ever had is Jamie, who hated Alex for being too much like their mother, for being unable to pretend. Alex isn’t certain he would choose his brother over the Courts — actually, he knows he wouldn’t, because he tried once, to go back to the place he’s never been, without a thought for what that might do to Jamie. But Eliza looks at that human, who looks nothing like her, all bronze-dark skin and gold-kissed curls where she’s pale-faced and dark eyes, dark hair — Eliza looks at her with such helpless affection.

What could a human ever do to deserve that?

He snags a bartender, orders a whiskey sour. Eliza grabs it the second it touches the bartop and glares at Alex as though he would poison her given half a chance. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex says. And he means it: now that he’s seen her wear an expression that isn’t suspicion or scorn, he wants so badly for her to give him a kindly look. Wants to be worth that much. “I — I wouldn’t have done anything, if you’d told me. I just wanted to talk.”

“Don’t bullshit me. _You just wanted to talk._ Sure. Like all those bastards upstate only ever _just wanted_ to talk, or do me a favor, or say hello to my sister, or give us a gift. _I just wanted_ , blah blah blah.” She places her palms flat on the bar — there is a gap where her left pinky should be, a clean cut from the hand. Alex stares. “It’s never _just_ anything with your kind, and you know it.”

He bristles at that. _Bastard. Your kind._ “And what, exactly, would you imagine is _my kind_?”

“Unseelie. Court.”

“I’m not Court,” he snaps. The accusation veers too close to his previous thoughts, the reminder he doesn’t actually belong anywhere. There’s no place for him to return to, and no one willing to keep him. He drops his gaze.

(Stupid, stupid. None of this is some new revelation, why is he getting fucked up about it now?)

Eliza’s quiet voice interrupts his spiral. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. That was wrong of me. Sorry.”

Alex blinks at her, shame and recognition making him flush. His skin prickles, invisible fur standing on end. Of course, of course she’s sorry. Poor changeling child, left in a crib so the fae could steal her human counterpart. Eliza doesn’t belong, either — she must have been very clever and careful to hide her real self from those humans she loves, so they wouldn’t kill her, so they would love her, too. At least Alex had Rachel, for a little while. He has no right to complain.

“It’s — fine.” He forces a smile. It doesn’t feel like it sits right on his face. He’s tired and hungry, and he wants to go back to their awkward conversation before he messed everything up like he always does. He should call the night a loss and slink home, tail between his legs, but something in him can’t help trying to salvage the situation. Clearing his throat, he volleys, “Um. So. Upstate?”

She glances at him, and Alex finds himself curving inward, trying to look small and unthreatening. “Albany,” she says. “We moved to the city when I was in high school.”

“Oh. Okay. I, yeah, I wondered about that. I, ah. I moved here a few years ago. For law school.” He makes the appropriate sheepish gesture he’s learned humans do when they’re not scoping for connections, seeking to impress. 

Eliza looks surprised. “Really? At… at a human school?”

That stings. Doesn’t feel much different from _you go to Columbia?_ with the condescending once-over, usually followed by some dismissive comment in the vein of _well, you’re all smart._ As though Alex didn’t work his ass off to finish his degree with a semester to spare, or go weeks without hunting or sleeping in order to get a crazy high score on his LSAT. As though he hasn’t had to work against the odds just to be here, much less hold a modicum of success.

Some of his hurt must show in his face, because Eliza backpedals. “No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that. I just — you’re, well, a fox. It doesn’t seem like you’d… enjoy that, I guess? Aren’t laws kind of not your thing?”

Oh, she was making a comment about him being unseelie. He relaxes. “Yeah, I do. It’s fun, you know? Human rules are so complicated and nonsensical. I like Contract Law — there’s loopholes everywhere, it’s like reading a spider web.”

Eliza grimaces. She reaches for her glass and almost knocks it over. Alex frowns. “What did I say this time?” He’s trying to make casual conversation, he’s not prying into her personal life. If anything, he’s given her plenty of information that could be used against him. “You asked a question, I answered it, I told the truth, I don’t know what you —”

“Look,” she says. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Just — tell me what you need from me so my sister can get home safe. Whatever you think is a fair price, I’ll pay it.”

Alex hadn’t been steering them towards a destination. The implication he’s out to get something from her would offend him, except he’s too shocked by her offer. _Tell me what you need, I’ll pay it._ The kind of promise any faerie would thrill to hear, but it makes Alex feel… gross. Cheap. He thought they were just talking.

“That’s… a dangerous thing to say.”

“I know it.”

“I could ask for anything.” He’s not building a good case for her to trust him, but he can’t stop thinking about her missing finger. Doesn’t she know better than to make an open-ended deal? Some soreness in him pushes for a reaction besides the steely resignation in her eyes. “The voice from your throat. The heart from your chest. Another life in exchange. Anything.”

“Yeah. And I want my sister alive. Name your price.”

Alex stares at Eliza — who closes her eyes as though he might lunge for her throat with the slightest permission, her fingers white-knuckle clenched — and he feels sick. To her and John and Jamie, he’ll always be the monster with its jaws extended, primed to bite. And he doesn’t want to be more human, or a “better person,” or any of that bullshit, but he’d like to be… _more_. To one person, at least.

He shakes his head. “Nothing. You don’t have to give me anything. You take her and go. That’s it. The terms of our bargain.” Gods, he’s pathetic. He barks a soft fox-laugh at himself — look at you, Hamilton, expecting a total stranger, a changeling no less, to give some sort of fuck about you, a half-breed unseelie. He should’ve asked for the Valentinos, gotten _something_ for his trouble. “Gods, fuck. _Our bargain._ My professors’d kill me.”

Eliza gapes at him. Then —

“Accepted,” she says, gathering her purse and scrambling down from the barstool like he might go back on the deal at any moment. “Thank you.”

Alex shrugs. His glamour prickles like an ill-fitting jacket, stretched too thin with hunger and exhaustion and the feeling of rejection. He’s going to have to resume his hunt once Eliza is gone, because his human shape is threatening to slip from him and he cannot go into class tomorrow with fangs and a tail. Just the thought of finding a likely person, luring them into the bathroom for a blowjob, and cleaning up after he’s eaten makes him want to curl up in a small, dark corner.

Eliza gives him one more glance. “Good night, Alex,” she says, soft.

The sound of his name in her voice makes him shiver.

“Hey,” he blurts out, before he can think better of it, “this isn’t — you don’t have to, it’s not part of the deal we just made, but. Would you maybe want to talk sometime? Since we’re both — I mean, I know what it’s like. Living here and… being different.”

He doesn’t know what compels him to ask. Maybe it’s just part of his unseelie nature, angling to get one last thing out of her before she’s gone for good. Or maybe he can finally admit he’s lonely. At any rate, he knows it’s unfair to dump that on Eliza, who clearly wants nothing to do with him and _his kind_. He fully expects her to walk away without another word.

Instead, she sighs and pulls out her phone. “What’s your phone number?”

“... What?”

“Your _phone number_. You said you wanted to talk, I’m giving you a shot. So?”

Dazed, Alex recites the string of digits. This doesn’t mean anything. He knows it doesn’t mean anything. She probably asked out of fear that he’ll follow her home unless she placates him, because obviously him being unseelie means he lacks any sort of morals. He doesn’t ask for her number. Let her have another advantage over him — his name, his profession, his true shape. He offers her a weak smile. “I’ll see you around, then?”

She bobs a nod, already disappearing into the crowd.

***

Much, much later that night, Alex stumbles home with blood on his teeth. He had to go to another club farther downtown in order to snag a young blonde twink, and while he feels better with real food inside him, he’s also hating the thought of being awake and on the bus to class in a few hours. Maybe he should just pull an all-nighter? As he staggers towards his bed, he recognizes that as a losing argument, his body sinking down into the mattress and going softly furred. Wait, shit, he forgot to take off his makeup. He lifts his head and frowns at the mascara smears on his sheets.

What time is it anyways? If it’s past 3:00 AM, there is no point in tossing and turning only to drift asleep once he needs to be awake. Alex fishes his phone from his jeans pocket and squints at the screen.

_one (1) new message [unknown number]_

Eliza.

He freezes, hand gripping his phone hard enough to make the plastic case creak in protest. Just open the text, Alex. But it’s a long minute and the screen has gone dark again before he can manage to type in his passcode. He reads her text once, then again, slower. He starts tapping out a reply, one letter at a time.

(She’s probably not even awake anymore.)

_ <meet over coffee? i’m free all weekend, and there’s a cafe near the little park, y’know, with the ducks? i can send you the address, it’s human-owned> _

He bites his lip, hits Send.

She’s not going to see it until morning. And by then she might have decided this whole thing was a mistake and block his number. There is nothing to be gained by him lying here, staring at her text, replaying their conversation over and over again in his mind.

He doesn’t sleep that night.


	2. and i do remember your voice

_Girls’ night out_. Fun, right? No half-recognized acquaintances from work tagging along to make things awkward, no older relatives around to guilt you into drinking in moderation, no partners third-wheeling (not that Eliza’s ever had anything more serious than a friend with an Understanding to bring to a party, but whatever). Just two sisters, and a free evening, and a downtown club that carefully splits the difference between “scuzzy” and “overrun with hipsters.” Good clean no-stakes no-pressure fun.

“And then it turns out they were _roommates_ , and I just about lost my shit, right there in the self-checkout line—”

Eliza splutters as the girl next to her at the bar joggles her arm with an exuberant gesture, causing her drink to slop over the edge of her glass and splash on the counter. The girl flickers a glance over at her, then turns back to her conversation. Rude, you’d think, except Eliza is running on a powerful Concealment right now; about the only people in this club who see her as more than an indistinct blur in the peripheral vision are the bartender and Ange, somewhere out on the dance floor. Which is more or less how she likes things in a place like this.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, all the same. Politeness is its own kind of shield. People will remember an asshole, and complain about them for days to anyone who’ll listen, but hardly anyone gives a second thought to someone who passes through their life trailing _please_ s and _sorry_ s and _excuse me_ s. And you can never tell, in a big city like this, who might have a touch of the blood, or who might be a Court exile in deep disguise, or who simply might have received the Sight as a gift for services rendered.

And there’s the beginnings of a headache, right on cue. Eliza knocks back the rest of her whiskey sour and sighs, digging her fingertips into the throb in her temple.

No, Eliza doesn’t much care for clubs; they’re noisy and crowded and dark, at once flooded with dangerous anonymity (anyone—any _thing_ —could be hiding in the shadows, and you’d never know until its claws were in you) and the grimy cling of being leered at by all and sundry, brushed and touched and bumped and maybe grabbed by strangers, even through her Concealment. But she does love her sister. And she does love to see her sister happy. And when her sister, whom she loves more than life itself and who seems to have discovered a trick of adding extra hours to the day so she can work more than humanly possible, says _I’m gonna be in town this weekend, it’s been so long since we’ve gotten to have a girls’ night out together_ , what else can Eliza reply but _it sure has, it’s just a shame Peggy won’t be around too_.

It really is a shame; having both her sisters around might’ve made Eliza feel a little safer, might’ve distracted her from the much-ness of the club a little better. As it is, she’s feeling rather fragile, despite the drink she’s downed and the carefully applied glamours she’s draped over herself. Four layers all over—any more than that and she’s found her features start looking weirdly out-of-focus, which attracts attention—and an extra couple on her back for safety. Not as if anyone’s going to be looking there, of course. Just, the idea of someone noticing _that_ , maybe touching when she’s not expecting it…she shudders to think about it.

 _Making excuses, Eliza, you’re being antisocial_ , she scolds herself. _You came out here to have fun, so go have fun, why don’t you? This is just a club. Just a normal, human club. No one’s out here to shove their hand through your glamour on a whim. Relax._

She looks down into the melting-ice dregs of her glass and sighs. Maybe she’ll get another drink real quick, shoot it, and then go out and find Ange on the dance floor. Enjoy being silly and sloppy and with one of the few people in the world she trusts. Lose herself in the music, for as long as her buzz lasts. Try not to think about how these moments of pleasure are nothing but borrowed time stacked against the constant slog of her little life…

…Phew, _okay_ , drama queen. That got dark somehow. Ange would—no, the joke falls flat even in her head. Ange wouldn’t laugh if she could hear Eliza’s thoughts, she’d go all hawk-eyed and concerned in that way she only gets towards Eliza and Peggy. Which is more than Eliza deserves from her, she knows, and she’s infinitely grateful for her sister’s compassion, but sometimes human kindness is so _exhausting_ , even in the abstract.

Well, one thing’s for sure: she’s nowhere near drunk enough right now to be getting this maudlin. Eliza raises her glass to her lips automatically, forgetting it’s empty, snorts at herself when she gets nothing but a brackish mouthful of water.

“Can I get your next one?”

A man’s voice, loud over the thump-thump of the music. Her Concealment must’ve slipped while she wasn’t paying attention. How annoying. Oh, well, it’s easy enough to make someone forget she exists in a place as overwhelming as this, even if they’re looking right at her. She glances at the man through her hair.

Quite suddenly, the mild remark she’s prepared about how she’s _just about to close her tab, thanks,_ freezes on her tongue. Two trains of thought collide in her mind, one of them shrieking _run you idiot run run run now fucking RUN before he pounces_ and the other howling _don’t move don’t say anything don’t even breathe if you play dead you’re not interesting_. Without thinking, she turns her head fully to stare at the man at the bar next to her.

He’s less handsome than pretty, the kind of aggressively done-up fashionable that normally makes Eliza feel even more invisible than usual, all winged eyeliner and black with gold accents. His hair’s pulled back in one of those ridiculous hipster topknots, which ought to just look pretentious, but somehow he pulls it off in a way that highlights his high cheekbones and angular eyes, at once youthful and severe. A human wouldn’t notice, but Eliza can see the Allure glinting off the line of his jaw, picking out the sparkle of his eyeshadow, beckoning, calling, purring blandishments in a sultry undertone.

Most importantly, though, when she looks at him, she doesn’t see a human. Not even close.

 _Unseelie_. _Unseelie. Unseelie._

“What do you want,” Eliza says. High frightened little-girl voice, which she hates, but she can’t seem to manage anything else. “Who are you. What are you doing here.” The man puts his head to one side. Animal. A considering sharpness in his eyes that tells her—oh no, oh no—tells her he knows she’s not human either.

“I’m allowed to be here, same as you, aren’t I? Unless—this isn’t your territory, is it?”

Eliza clamps her lips together. Can’t work out the right answer. _Yes_ would be a lie, might rile him, but _no_ might encourage him, send him on his merry way, and Eliza knows for a fact that she won’t like whatever errand he came here for in the first place. A wrinkle forms between his brows as he watches her squirm.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” he goes on, a little more slowly, like he’s not sure she understands him. “Or any changelings, really. Although this place is quieter than the fae establishments uptown, so.” Uptown. Oh, gods, he’s been uptown—she _lives_ uptown—he’ll know if she lies, then, he’ll catch her in it and that’ll be the end—and he’s _named_ her, he’s—

Eliza doesn’t realize she’s trembling until the ice in her empty glass starts to clink together with the force of it. That wrinkle between the faery’s brows deepens.

( _How odd_ , she thinks distantly. She’s never seen a faery look uncertain before.)

“I’m Alex,” he says at last, his tone casual, inviting. He raises his eyebrows at her, a gentle nudge. He’s bared his throat, so to speak, and exchanges like this have rules for people like them.

“Eliza,” she half-whispers. “This isn’t my territory. I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll go now, if you want. Only give me and mine safe passage. That’s all. Please. Please.” She’s begging, talking like some absurd bit character out of a paperback fantasy novel, but hewing to the forms is the best way to appease a strange faery.

...At least, that’s what she’d assumed. But Alex just bursts out laughing.

“Oh, god, that’s hilarious. I’m not—this isn’t mine, either, I don’t have any power here. You can go whenever you want. Or not, I don’t care. But it’s fine. I’m just—I come here sometimes. That’s all.”

Eliza reels a little bit with the rapid-fire pace of his chatter. Maybe he’s drunk? Or high on some weirdass Night Market blow. But no, when he pauses to drag in a breath he fixes her with a look that’s nothing but attentive, and he’s not giving off any of the strange vibes or auras or (let’s face it) smells that accompany faerie drugs. “I…don’t. Come here, I mean,” she manages, painfully awkwardly. “I don’t—places like this are—difficult. For me.”

He flashes a smile at that. “Right, right. Changeling. Of course. Like I said, I could get you another drink? Whatever you like. EDM is easier to handle when you’re buzzed.” The mockery stings, and for the first time a bit of irritation bubbles up through the chill of fear. _Right, changeling_. Where the fuck does he get off on that?

“No thanks. Reynard.”

“Actually, it’s _kitsune_. Not that it matters.” Except that it _must_ , if he’s correcting her, which means she’s overstepped herself, and why exactly is she allowed to ever talk, again? She’s going to die in this bar, tonight, over _terminology_. At least if she were, say, Ange, she would’ve gotten in a good parting shot before the end.

And speaking of Ange… “So what brings you here?” Alex continues. “You’re not into clubs, you’re sober. It doesn’t seem like you’re having a good time.”

Which is true, but he shouldn’t say it. “I’m just…here,” she says intelligently. “With. A person.”

“You could at least come up with an interesting lie.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Eliza is doing the mental math on whether or not it’d be possible to wrangle some kind of escape out of her limited arsenal of glamours and Concealments when—

“Bets, you dummy, are you gonna come dance with me, or are you gonna just sit there and pound shots all night?”

Oh, _no_. Angelica’s emerged from the crowd on the dance floor and seized her by the arm. Her eyes are a little overbright with booze, but she’s not sloppy or stupid, and her cat’s grin is as sharp as ever when Eliza looks at her. “Not much of a sisters’ night out if I don’t even get to spend time with you, is it? Oh, wait, you wanna do a shot together? Anything but that marshmallow vodka, though, please, I love you so much but I have to draw the line somewhere…” She trails off, catching sight of Alex. Up up up go her eyebrows, and her grin takes on an incredulous, delighted cast. “…Unless,” Ange continues, “unless I’m interrupting something?”

Alex makes a soft interested noise, and Eliza’s heart plummets directly into her stomach, because she has eyes in her head, and she can see the way Alex’s face has lit up at Ange’s presence. She’s seen faery folk make faces like that at Ange before, usually just before trying to offer her a single blood-red rose or a ride on their snow-white pony or just an innocent kiss on the hand. All very gallant, all very courtly, but they’d all had the same thing behind their sweet smiles and charmingly old-fashioned language and pretty gifts.

Hunger.

There’s hunger in Alex’s eyes now, in his grin that mirrors Ange’s in its sharpness. _Unseelie_ blares that klaxon in Eliza’s head again, and besides that she can smell the sharp tang of animal musk on him, see a flicker of rust-red and pearl-white superimposed over the trim lines of his body. No reason to suspect that that hunger is anything less than perfectly literal, then. A fox is a fox, no matter what skin he’s hiding under.

And he’s looking at her sister. And her sister is, she notices, looking back, curiosity starting to bloom as Eliza fails to clarify the situation going on here with this handsome stranger. Ange’s attention snags on his glamour, just as it’s meant to, and her expression takes on that keenness it has when her brilliant mind decides it’s found something worth its time. This could be a scene from Eliza’s worst nightmare: a faery monster charms her sister into carelessness, prepares to sink its teeth into Angelica’s unresisting throat, while Eliza stands there watching the whole tragedy play out from the sidelines.

She digs her nails into her palm.

No. No, Eliza will not let that happen. Not to her sister. She might be worthless, but she’s not powerless. And she won’t let herself be helpless, not with this much at stake.

Eliza leans back against the bar, pulling away from Ange. Her hand drifts out, oh so casual, and brushes against Alex’s where it’s resting on the counter. A tiny jolt when their skin makes contact, a pulse like electricity, but Eliza holds herself steady. “No, you’re fine,” she chirps. Carefully-modulated note in her voice that you’d hear if you listened close, and Ange always listens close. She hopes it reads more _please fuck off, I’m trying to hit this_ and less _RED ALERT RED ALERT RED ALERT_. “Alex here was just telling me about this place. Since I’ve, you know. Never been.” Tosses that name out like a knife Ange might conceal up a sleeve. No way is _Alex_ a true naming, but it might be enough to slow him down, if he decides to try anything.

“That so?”

“I was just surprised,” Alex cuts in, all sweetness and smiles. “I like this place, I’m here a lot. So I would’ve remembered seeing her here, you know? Seeing either of you, really,” he goes on, his voice dropping into a teasing purr. Masterful performance: he should sound skeevy and off-putting, but his tone is just light enough, just coy enough, that you’re left wanting to volley back.

The near-imperceptible snail trail of Allure he’s oozing probably doesn’t hurt, either.

“Yeah, well—I’m just in town for the weekend, and my favorite dive in Bushwick closed end of last year, so. Thought I’d scope this place out. Heard good things about it.”

“And? Is it living up to the hype?”

“I’m reserving judgment,” Ange says with a mock-haughty toss of her head. Alex laughs, twisting a spike of pure ice in Eliza’s gut.

“Sure. I get the idea it takes a lot to satisfy you.”

“Oh? And how did you figure that out?”

Eliza’s too gone with terrified outrage to hear whatever glib riposte Alex offers in response. _No._ Absolutely fucking not. This has gone entirely too far. Eliza’s fault, all Eliza’s fault, she should’ve made her move sooner, before the Allure had a chance to kick in, but it’s too late, he’s got a hold on Ange, that much is obvious from the fact they’re still talking. Ange hasn’t dropped her name yet, but she’s sure to any minute, at this rate, and then she’ll be as good as gone.

Only one thing to do, then.

She bites her lip hard, stretches out her mind, and hits Ange with the strongest wave of Concealment she can muster.

Ange staggers a little under the sudden weight of the magic, her eyes widening; she doesn’t bend to it immediately. Eliza pushes harder. Gray woolly feeling, like smothering her sister in a wet blanket, and Eliza’s concentration wavers as she fights down a wave of nausea. _Look away, look away, look away_ , she pleads silently, redoubling her efforts. _Don’t look at him. Don’t see him. He’s not interesting to you, he doesn’t deserve a moment of your time. Leave him with your poor, lonely sister and find someone better._

_(I’m keeping you safe. Let me keep you safe. Please.)_

Angelica is strong-minded, sharper than most, but she’s only human in the end. One last moment of struggle, one last exertion of will, and then Eliza breaks through. Ange’s eyes go dull, a little unfocused, and her gaze slips off of Alex like water from waxed paper. She gives Eliza a vague smile, touched with only a shadow of its earlier roguishness. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she says. Nods to Alex, polite and distant, and then prances back out onto the dance floor, already swaying a little to the beat of the song that’s just come on.

Eliza stands there, stiff as a corpse, her fingers still just barely entwined with Alex’s, watching watching watching. Only when the bleached gold of Ange’s curls has disappeared into the crowd does she sag with a loud exhale of released tension. A second too late she snatches her hand away from Alex’s, nurses it against her chest like he’s burned it with his touch. She expects Alex to retaliate somehow, to lunge at her for depriving him of his prey, witnesses be damned. It’ll hurt, she knows, whatever he does, it won’t be nice, the unseelie don’t pull punches and Ange is a hell of a morsel to lose.

That’s fine, though. Let her be a shield. She’s done it before, and she’s suffered for it, and she’d do it again, again and again and again until there’s nothing left of her to stand between her sister and the hidden world.

But he doesn’t snap. He just stands there at the bar, looking between Eliza and the dance floor with a befuddled expression on his face. Stands there long enough for the dread and apprehension knotted in her chest to unravel and twist themselves into something else, something stronger and hotter and far more bitter. Anger, she realizes, with a distant sort of surprise. She can’t even remember the last time she allowed herself to be this angry, and at a target standing right in front of her, no less. Her piled-on layers of glamour tremble under the force of the emotion; she white-knuckles them into stillness, her breathing gone shallow, and without meaning to begins to speak.

“I never do that to my sister. _Never_. Not since we were tiny, and I didn’t know what I was doing. But then you come along. And then I have to lie to her. To my _sister_. I have to treat her like she’s just some nobody human. So thanks for ruining my fucking night, asshole.” She glares at him, reckless with her own outrage. “And you owe me that drink now,” she spits, hardly knowing what she’s saying.

Surprises are in plentiful supply tonight, it seems, because he double-blinks at her like she’s tapped him on the end of the nose before flagging down the bartender and, yes, ordering her another drink. He drops onto the stool next to hers, and they sit in stony silence for what feels like a decade until the bartender slides her whiskey sour across to them. She snatches it before Alex can try to do something else fucked-up, like hand it to her, shoots a suspicious glance at him through the lock of hair that’s slipped back down in front of her face.

“I’m sorry,” he says. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was speaking in earnest. She can practically see his pointed ears drooping, a spectral, bushy tail curving down between his legs. “I—I wouldn’t have done anything, if you’d just told me. I just wanted to talk.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” Eliza tosses back a mouthful of her drink, glares down at the sticky, battered wood of the counter. “ _You just wanted to talk_. Sure. Like all those bastards upstate only ever _just wanted_ to talk, or do me a favor, or say hello to my sister, or give us a gift. _I just wanted_ , blah blah blah.” Rather pointedly, she spreads both her hands flat on the counter, not bothering to hide the empty space where her left pinky finger used to be. Her skin prickles with Alex’s stare. “It’s never _just_ anything with your kind, and you know it.”

“And what, exactly, would you imagine is _my kind_?”

“Unseelie,” she spits. The naming feels good, bruised-knuckles busted-drywall good, after holding it back all this time. “Court.”

“I’m not Court.” That statement treads right on the heels of hers, low and bitter. It could just be another lie, of course—he sure dresses like one of the long-term exiles or weekenders from upstate Courts. But somehow, she doesn’t think it is, and she doesn’t call him out for it. Something in the tone of his voice gets her, maybe, the look in his eyes, the way his mouth twists with the admission as he bows his head.

It’s familiar. And yes, it’s been a long, long time since Eliza’s actually wanted to be acknowledged by a Court, years since she’s been naive enough to think anyone worth half a damn would pay her any mind, but. Well. She remembers what the longing is like. Unbidden, a little sting of righteous anger on his behalf: _did They throw you away too? Did They tell you that you weren’t wanted?_ _That you weren’t_ enough _?_

Flustered, she stomps that thought down as quickly as she can, reaches up to twist her hair between her fingers, stops when she realizes this makes her maimed hand even more visible. Shoots a wary glance at Alex, who is still looking down, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“…I’m sorry.” That’s not what she’d meant to say, not that she’d exactly had a plan here, but she finds the words are sincere. “I shouldn’t have assumed. That was wrong of me. Sorry.”

“It’s—fine.” He offers her a curt, close-lipped smile that drops off his face as soon as he looks away. They sit there, side by side, for several uncomfortable moments. Eliza takes another sip of her drink. Alex isn’t as good with silence as she is; he squirms a bit, clears his throat, and then finally says, “Um. So. Upstate?”

“Mm. Albany. We moved to the city when I was in high school.”

“Oh. Okay. I, yeah, I wondered about that.” He makes a vague gesture, a shrug and a jerk of the head. Apologetic, or explanatory? “I, ah. I moved here a few years ago. For law school.”

“Really? At…at a human school?” Alex wrinkles his nose at her, and she flushes. Right, because she didn’t sound enough like a countrified dope to begin with. For all she knows, there might be a dozen fae law schools in this city; it’s not as if she goes out of her way to interact with with the _greater community_. She backtracks. “No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that. I just—you’re, well, a fox. It doesn’t seem like you’d…enjoy that, I guess? Aren’t laws kind of not your thing?”

He perks up again so quickly it’s a little frightening. “Yeah, I do. It’s fun, you know? Human rules are so complicated and nonsensical. I like Contract Law—there’s loopholes everywhere, it’s like reading a spider web.”

Okay. In retrospect, Eliza realizes that while he owned up to not being Court, he never said anything about not being unseelie. And the idea of an unseelie playing the justice system for shits and giggles is…disconcerting at best. But, frankly, why is any of this surprising? And why is she volunteering details of her personal life that he has _no right to_? Wasn’t she angry at him just a second ago? She fishes for that feeling, tries to cover by fumbling at her glass.

Alex raises an eyebrow at her, frowning. “What did I say _this_ time?” An edge back in his voice, but it’s less angry than petulant this time. “You asked a question, I answered it, I told the truth, I don’t know what you—“

“Look,” Eliza interrupts, before he can weasel anything else unexpected out of her. She drums her fingers on the counter, uneven little tattoo. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Just—tell me what you need from me so my sister can get home safe. Whatever you think is a fair price, I’ll pay it.”

A cold, shocked little pause.

“That’s…a dangerous thing to say.”

“I know it.”

“I could ask for anything. The voice from your throat. The heart from your chest. Another life in exchange. Anything.”

“Yeah.” Her voice only shakes a little as she says it. “And I want my sister alive. Name your price.”

Her language is sloppy, she knows, and he’s already said he likes looking for loopholes. No earthly way she’s going to come out of this all right—if she’s lucky, maybe, he’ll decide not to play with her before he takes his due. But she’s never met a faery who would shy away from a bargain like this, and at the very, very, very least, the longer his eyes are on her, the more time Angelica has to get away. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes (tries not to squeeze them shut, bracing for the claws in her heart or the knife in her gut).

And—

“Nothing. You don’t have to give me anything.” Eliza blinks hard. Alex is looking right at her, his face solemn. “You take her and go. That’s it. The terms of our bargain.” He lets out a humorless little laugh, brushes away a stray lock of hair that’s escaped from his bun. “Gods, fuck. _Our bargain_. My professors’d kill me.”

Eliza doesn’t react right away. All her energy is going towards keeping her from fainting right out of her chair. Only when Alex doesn’t immediately shout _just kidding, boy, I really had you going_ , does she manage to pull herself together.

He’s letting Ange go. Letting them _both_ go. That’s not the way his kind do things, not at all. But Eliza hasn’t lived this long by not taking an escape route when one presents itself, so she bites back her _wait, are you sure?_ in favor of pushing her glass away and sliding off her barstool. “Accepted,” she says, already starting to edge away from him—has to give some kind of verbal confirmation, because wouldn’t that be just like a faery to trip her up with something stupid like _you never_ said _you accepted my terms_. “Thank you.”

He shrugs one shoulder, swipes the pad of one thumb over his lower lip. Smudge of dark lipstick there that he rubs away between his fingers. His human glamour-shape ripples, so for a moment his features pull too sharp, and she can see as more than a suggestion the pointed ears tipped with black fur and flattened against his skull. The effect should be monstrous, but to Eliza it feels like the opposite: it’s not a starving wild beast facing her down anymore, just a pretty, overdressed boy in the wrong skin.

For the first time, Eliza notices how young he looks, under the flashy clothes and covergirl makeup. He can’t be much older than her.

Maybe that’s what makes her hesitate. “Good night, Alex,” she says. Still not a true naming, but it’s all she’s got for him, and right now it feels more real than _unseelie_ or _Reynard_ or even _kitsune_. He’s letting her off easy when he doesn’t have to. She can do this much in return.

Mistake, mistake, mistake. “Hey,” Alex says, before she can move out of earshot. His hand jerks towards her, as though to grab hers again, before he lowers it with a visible effort. “This isn’t—you don’t have to, it’s not part of the deal we just made, but. Would you maybe want to talk sometime? Since we’re both—I mean, I know what it’s like. Living here and…being different.”

Gods, of course. Eliza presses her lips together. _Fuck you and fuck your conniving unseelie bullshit_ , she ought to say, and then blast him with whatever ill-wish will stick to a creature like him, run out with Ange in tow before he recovers. But there’s a softness in his expression, wide eyes, a little twist to the mouth that’s not a teasing smirk. Remorse? Or, gods forbid, could it be guilt?

She’s never seen a faery carry on so. Not on her behalf, anyway. It’s a trick of some kind, has to be, but even so the Folk aren’t usually inclined to tread on their own pride like this. It would be an awful lot of trouble for him to go to just for a bit of sport. Not like he could get a good meal off of Eliza once he’s through with her, after all. It wouldn’t sustain.

Eliza’s no human, to be drawn in by glamour and Allure and spellcraft. But she’s susceptible to other things. Nature of the blood. Alex is _different, unexpected_ , and her brain catches on that. _What is his angle? What does he want? Why does he want it?_ The faery in her demands answers, won’t let her cut him dead and run for cover without leaving a back door open to investigate. And there’s still just enough anger coursing through her to make her daring.

She unzips her purse, pulls out her phone, navigates to the keypad.

“What’s your phone number?”

“…What?”

“Your _phone number_. You said you wanted to talk. I’m giving you a shot.” She gestures with the phone. “So?”

Alex rattles off the number, still with that lonely, dazed look on his face. Eliza punches it in, saves it simply as _Alex_ , no warning text or dire emojis in the contact listing. Stashes her phone away. Alex seems to know better than to ask for her number in return; he just gives her a wan little smile and says, “I’ll see you around, then?”

Eliza isn’t sure what reply she makes, if any. Suddenly, all the niggling annoyances of being in this club seem a thousand times bigger, the music deafening, the accidental touches like sandpaper on her skin, the close reek of bodies and alcohol and artificial-sweet perfume enough to make her gorge rise. Even her own glamours feel heavy and restrictive on her skin, winter layers in a sauna. All she wants is to get out of here safe with Ange and curl up in the safe green haven of her apartment. No faery tricks there, no danger, no unseelie boys with big sad eyes. She manages a bob of the head, or maybe just a convulsive flinch, and without waiting to gauge his response, scuttles off onto the crowded dance floor after Ange.

She’s dancing up by the DJ in the front of the room when Eliza finally finds her. For a moment Eliza just stands there and watches, heedless of the other dancers buffeting her. Easy to see why Ange would tempt an unseelie on the prowl: she fairly crackles with life, a vibrant energy shimmering on her skin that proclaims _I am here, I am special, I am young and beautiful and brilliant and oh, so human_. Priceless beyond measure.

 _And all Alex saw there was a good night’s hunting_ , Eliza tells herself, trying to stoke her anger again, give herself a little extra strength. _Idiot. Only a fool would think that of her. Only a fool wouldn’t be able to see how much she matters._

 _And she’s_ my _sister, anyway. Not his to claim. Not his to touch. She’s mine, mine,_ mine _._

Eliza shudders a little bit. That’s an uncomfortably fae thought, and she’s not, she didn’t mean, she isn’t—

“Hey!” Eliza jerks away from a glancing impact—one of the dancers on the floor has lost his footing and bumped into her. He shakes his head, gives her a brief, hazy glare, and then turns back to his group of friends, Eliza’s Concealments doing their work. Just as they’re meant to do. Just as they’ve always done. But somehow, Eliza can still feel Alex’s eyes on her skin, and somehow, the sensation isn’t altogether unpleasant, and it’s loud and dark and confusing and she wants to know _why why why_ and—and she’s got to get out of here, dammit.

“Ange,” she says. Too close to the speakers; Ange doesn’t notice her calling. “Angelica,” Eliza says, a little louder, reaching out to tap Ange on the shoulder. Ange flinches at her touch and whirls around, a shadow of fear passing over her face in the flicker of the strobes. Eliza jolts back herself, her heart tripping out of rhythm with the music. _Did she get the magic wrong? Does Ange remember? Does she know what a monster I am?_

“Ahh—! Oh, Bets, it’s just you, you surprised me.” And just like that, the wide-eyed terror is gone, so quickly that Eliza would think she’d imagined it if not for the knot in her stomach. Ange’s brows knit for a moment, like she’s forgotten what she was about to say, but she shakes herself a little, pushes her hair off her forehead, and says, “Finally ready to dance?” She does an exaggerated wriggle, lays her head to the side with a goofy, eager grin.

Gods, Eliza is the worst, most selfish creature in the world. She has to look away from Ange’s expectant gaze before she can choke out, “No, it’s—just, this place—it’s too much right now, I can’t, I’m sorry—”

“Oh. Oh! No, don’t apologize, it’s fine, you’re fine.” Ange is a good actress; over the din of the club, Eliza can barely detect the little fall of disappointment in her voice. “We can, yeah, let’s get our stuff from the coat check, I’ll call a car.”

Eliza mumbles assent, feeling like an utter heel, and lets Ange take her by the hand and lead her towards the door. “Sorry,” she repeats, in a voice so tiny she’s sure Ange won’t be able to hear it.

“I should be the one apologizing,” Ange says firmly. “I was such an ass, making you come out here, I know it’s hard for you, and I didn’t even ask before I—”

“No, no, no, don’t say that, you weren’t anything like that, not even close—”

“—loud, and crowded, and I should’ve known it would be worse the later it got, how stupid of me—”

“Ange, please, it’s not your fault. It isn’t. I didn’t think, that’s all, I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be, here, for me to—not that this place is bad, it’s great, I’m just an idiot…”

“Still,” Ange insists, coming to a halt at the back of the coat check line. “I should’ve paid better attention. I know how it is for you.”

Eliza fights back an irrational surge of annoyance, even as she bobs her head in meek gratitude. _Humans and their kindness, humans and their kindness._ _I just took a metaphorical weedwhacker to your brain, Angelica, the least you could do is be upset with me for ruining your night twice over! And no, you don’t_ know _how it is for me, even without all the lying. Don’t you ever get tired of working so hard to be_ understanding _?_

Ghostly little echo in her head: _right, changeling_. Subtle dance of exchanges and tiny debts, territories and namings, every motion felt in the marrow. A kinship there, despite the awkward conversation and disconnect and fear. There’s someone who _really_ knows what Ange is only guessing at.

But she doesn’t want that, not in the slightest, not with _him_ , of all people. Her voice is maybe a little too sharp with that disgust when she replies, “You always do. Like you know your own mind.”

Ange makes a face at her.

“Eliza, what—? What’s that voice for, what’s wrong? Did something else happen?”

“What voice? I’m fine, I’m just tired, I want to go…”

“Wait. Hold on.” Ange stares hard at Eliza. “Was this—did that guy you were talking to earlier, Alan or whatever, did he say something out of line? Was he being a creep?”

“N-no! No, he didn’t do a thing.”

“Are you sure? Because if he was, we should really tell one of the bouncers to keep an eye out for him before we go. He shouldn’t get to ruin your night and then flounce off scot-free. And God forbid he gets his claws in some other girl.”

Well, that’s a bit on-the-nose. For a moment Eliza considers agreeing, making up some story and getting him thrown out of the club on the strength of Ange’s wrath, just to be petty. It would certainly feel good. Let one of the Folk schlep it on home alone and unhappy for once. See how they like it.

But—Eliza presses her lips together, torn. But he apologized to her. He _looked_ at her. There’s an obscure sense of obligation there that her non-promise to contact him doesn’t really cover. She can feel in her bones that a mean trick would be as good as a _fuck you_ to him, and then her curiosity would go forever unsatisfied.

And, frankly, it’s not as though getting Alex kicked out of one club would do much to deter a thing like him. Plenty of bars in this city. If he doesn’t find someone here, it’ll be some other unfortunate soul elsewhere. As long as it’s not Angelica, then it’s really none of her business.

…Which is a horrible thing to think, Eliza reminds herself hurriedly. She forges ahead before she can make herself look like even more of an idiot. “He didn’t do anything. He was perfectly fine. I’m just—you know.” She offers up a weak smile, hating herself. “I wasn’t…expecting to be talked to like that. So.”

“Right, right, right, of course. No, yeah, let’s go back to your place, maybe? We could always—there must be a liquor store open, we can get a bottle of wine and watch, like, _Miss Congeniality_. Or whatever’s on Netflix, something stupid and fun. No stakes, no pressure.”

“That sounds amazing. Honestly.” Hmm, a little wishy-washy. Ange is the one sticking her neck out here, after all, and Eliza is the ungrateful one. She adds, “And I promise I’ll make the plants behave themselves. For once.”

“Hah. Realistic promises only, please.”

“They don’t mean to get all—you know—grabby. They’re just not used to seeing other people…”

“They don’t _see_ anyone, they’re plants.”

“Or so you’d think.”

“Oh, okay, that’s not ominous at all…”

Eliza’s feeling a bit more like a person by the time the two of them shuffle to the head of the line. Ange flashes the attendant a smile as she retrieves their coats. “Weird that he saw you like that, though, huh?” she tosses out as Eliza shrugs hers on (another layer, another shield, safe safe safe). “That doesn’t usually happen, does it? Do you think—could he have been—”

Eliza shakes her head, maybe a little too fervently. “No. Definitely not. He was just some guy. Some nobody. It was my mistake.”

Ange squints at her. Eliza draws her silence around herself and endeavors to look sincere, or at least uninteresting. That makes two tricks on Ange in a night. Two successful tricks, to boot, because Ange shrugs after a second and turns away to peer at her phone for updates on their Uber driver.

So much for Eliza’s perfect record. And it’s all because of _him_. She bites her lip hard, tastes bitter sap as she follows Ange down the block to hunt down their ride.

She’s deleting his number, of course, just as soon as she gets home.

***

That was earlier, though.

And this is now, 1:43 in the morning on a work night, and Eliza is lying on the bed, wide awake, staring up at the phone in her hand. Staring up at the contact list on her phone, to be precise. At one entry in particular.

 _You don’t owe him shit_ , she reminds herself. _Everything’s squared away. No debts left. You never_ promised _to get in touch with him, after all, you just said you’d maybe give him a chance. And what good would it do you if you did? He’d play with you until he got bored, or until you weren’t useful, and then he’d throw you away. You’ve had that done to you enough times that you don’t have to go seeking it out, idiot._

A pothos vine on her bedside table reaches out for her, made quick by her presence like the rest of the jungle of potted plants in her tiny apartment. It curls around her arm, wordless but expressive in the language of rooted, growing things. _usbadfeelingdangerdefendtogethernessnotaloneness_. She pets its leaves comfortingly as she sorts through her thoughts, the flowering vines of her hair twisting into agitated knots.

_This is a big city. And he’s an unseelie, and you’re a…whatever you are. You run in different circles, walk different paths. You never have to talk to him again if you don’t want to._

_Never have to see him again._

Eliza lets her head loll to the side on her pillow. Familiar shapes before her eyes, plants and furniture, books and unfolded clothes, but all she can seem to see is a flicker of red and white fur. An animal roaming the darkened house, lurking in the foliage, imagined glimmer of bright, knowing eyes peering out at her from the shadows.

A prick at her heart, claws or sharp white teeth or something else entirely.

Unthinking, she pulls her glamour on, even though she’s alone, even though the apartment is warded against unwanted visitors, door locked and charms sketched in sea salt on the windowsills. Only once the hollow in her back has smoothed over and her undulating vines have gone to flat, lifeless hair does she dare to type out a message, lingering over every keystroke with shaking fingers. Hits _send_ , before she has time to think about what a terrible, terrible, terrible idea this is. The _in progress_ wheel whirls around for a heartbeat, and then—there it is. Sent. No take-backs.

All that’s left to do is wait for a response.

Eliza lets out a soft breath—a sigh, maybe, or a sob. Stares and stares and stares up at her phone, the blue-white light of the screen stark and lonely in the darkness.

_< you said you wanted to talk?>_


End file.
